Why has Israel’s president denied the pager attack on Hezbollah?

The Israeli president has said that he “rejects out of hand any connection” between his state and the wave of detonating pagers and walkie-talkies that hit Lebanon’s Hezbollah in particular, but a lot of bystanders too. It is not clear what led Isaac Herzog to contradict that otherwise universally accepted connection, which has been cheered on by some, and deplored by others.

It brings to mind the words of Claud Cockburn, who warned his readers well over eight decades ago: “Never believe anything until it’s officially denied.”

President Herzog’s blanket refusal to accept Israeli responsibility – or, alternatively, take credit – for an unprecedented intelligence killer blow to its northern enemy is even odder, since it came within hours of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s threatening warning to Hezbollah on the same day: “If Hezbollah has not understood the message, I promise you, it will understand the message.”

That seems as clear an official claim of credit for the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies as the prime minister could make.

Why, then, should the president be so much more reticent about celebrating Israel’s apparent masterstroke in its unique brand of terrifying counterterrorism?

President Herzog is well aware that critics of Israel’s dramatic sabotage operation last week accuse its secret services of engaging in an indiscriminate attack, hitting Lebanese civilians as well as Hezbollah militants. The International Criminal Tribunal could be persuaded to add the “collateral” casualties of the attacks to its indictments against senior Israeli officials.

Mr Netanyahu is widely reported to be “about to be” formally indicted by the ICC for actions of the IDF in its war on Hamas since last October.

The Israeli prime minister displays contempt for both the allegations and the jurisdiction of the ICC. His recent visit to the US to address Congress in Washington and confer with the Biden Administration shows that, in the prime minister’s calculus, only America matters.

His recent outburst against Keir Starmer’s modest limitations on UK weapons, as well as the ICC prosecution headed by the British lawyer, Sir Karim Khan, showed his contempt for states which try to “punch above their weight” and promote international jurisdiction.

Perhaps because of his British background, today’s Israeli president is more sensitive than US-educated Bibi Netanyahu to the impact of public opinion and policymakers in European countries on perceptions of Israel’s war-making – however much he may endorse robust (to put it mildly) measures against its enemies. Herzog is also aware of the Europeans’ signatures on the ICC’s charter.

Tensions within Israel’s political elite reflect the divisions inside Israeli society which, though it might be united against its external enemies, is polarised in its attitudes towards Netanyahu’s handling of the conflict since 7 October. Herzog prioritises getting hostages home. Netanyahu is going for military victory

His government seems to be following – not least with its strikes deep inside Lebanon against Hezbollah – a strategy of “de-escalation through escalation”. What that means is deterring Hezbollah from striking at northern Israel by showing how much more power to wreak havoc that Israel possesses than the Lebanese militants can deploy.

It is clearly the case that the IDF and Mossad can increase the pain inflicted on Lebanon in general and Hezbollah in particular. But the question is: how long can Israel sustain Hezbollah’s disruption of normal life and economic activity in its northern regions? Sadly, Lebanese have become accustomed to tragedy and scrabbling to get by on the margins.

If, after the dramatic body blows to Hezbollah at the start of last week, Hezbollah and its allies from Iraq to Yemen can continue to fire rockets and drones into Israel, then the euphoria about the crippling blows to around 4,000 or so Hezbollah supporters could dissipate fast.

Putting it bluntly, many Israelis are facing an unprecedented fall in living standards as well as security – even if the level of both of these problems for them would seem a vast improvement to many Lebanese. Knowing that the grass is more scorched on the other side is little comfort.

Israeli intelligence’s coup may turn out to be no more decisive than Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, or 9/11 was for al-Qaeda.

Israeli celebrations of the maiming of Hezbollah and the decapitation of its key commanders had something eerily reminiscent of Palestinians dancing in the streets after the Twin Towers collapsed 23 years ago, mistaking a successful surprise attack for a decisive blow.

Premature celebration of victory could sharpen the Israeli public’s divisions, if Israel’s longest war by far since 1948 drags on for many more months and drags everyday life down.

This war has ominous echoes of Algeria in the 1950s and Vietnam in the 1960s. Then, the modern French and American armies could defeat the insurgents in every pitched battle, but attrition wore down the technologically superior forces’ will to fight on.

Divisions at the top of Israeli politics about how to present their strategy against Hezbollah and Hamas could weaken popular support for an apparently endless war.

Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford